Solution Manual for Microeconomics 6th Edition

Hubbard OBrien 0134106245 9780134106243

Download full solution manual at:
https://testbankpack.com/p/solution-manual-for-microeconomics-6th-edition-
hubbard-obrien-0134106245-9780134106243/

Download full test bank at:

https://testbankpack.com/p/test-bank-for-microeconomics-6th-edition-hubbard-
obrien-0134106245-9780134106243/

CHAPTER 5 | Externalities, Environmental

Policy, and Public Goods
Brief Chapter Summary and Learning Objectives
5.1 Externalities and Economic Efficiency (pages 148–151)
Identify examples of positive and negative externalities and use graphs to show how
externalities affect economic efficiency.

▪ A negative externality is a cost that affects someone not directly involved in the production
or consumption of a good or service.
▪ A positive externality is a benefit that affects someone not directly involved in the
production or consumption of a good or service.

5.2 Private Solutions to Externalities: The Coase Theorem (pages 151–158)

Discuss the Coase theorem and explain how private bargaining can lead to economic
efficiency in a market with an externality.

▪ If transactions costs are low, private bargaining can result in efficient solutions to
externality problems.

5.3 Government Policies to Deal with Externalities (pages 158–165)

Analyze government policies to achieve economic efficiency in a market with an externality.

▪ When private solutions to externalities are not feasible, government intervention in the
form of a tax (negative externality) or subsidy (positive externality) can bring about an
efficient level of output.

Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Inc.

 CHAPTER 5 | Externalities, Environmental Policy, and Public Goods 105

5.4 Four Categories of Goods (pages 165–173)

Explain how goods can be categorized on the basis of whether they are rival or excludable
and use graphs to illustrate the efficient quantities of public goods and common resources.

▪ The four categories of goods are private, public, quasi-public, and common resources.

Key Terms
Coase theorem, p. 156. The argument of
economist Ronald Coase that if transactions
costs are low, private bargaining will result in an
efficient solution to the problem of externalities.
Command-and-control approach, p. 163. A
policy that involves the government imposing
quantitative limits on the amount of pollution
firms are allowed to emit or requiring firms to
install specific pollution control devices.
Common resource, p. 166. A good that is rival
but not excludable.
Excludability, p. 165. The situation in which
anyone who does not pay for a good cannot
consume it.
Externality, p. 148. A benefit or cost that affects
someone who is not directly involved in the
production or consumption of a good or service.
Free riding, p. 166. Benefiting from a good
without paying for it.
Market failure, p. 151. A situation in which the
market fails to produce the efficient level of
output.
Pigovian taxes and subsidies, p. 163.
Government taxes and subsidies intended to
bring about an efficient level of output in the
presence of externalities.
Private benefit, p. 149. The benefit received by
the consumer of a good or service.
Private cost, p. 149. The cost borne by the
producer of a good or service.
Private good, p. 166. A good that is both rival
and excludable.
Property rights, p. 151. The rights individuals
or businesses have to the exclusive use of their
property, including the right to buy or sell it.
Public good, p. 166. A good that is both
nonrival and nonexcludable.
Rivalry, p. 165. The situation that occurs when
one person’s consumption of a unit of a good
means no one else can consume it.
Social benefit, p. 149. The total benefit from
consuming a good or service, including both
the private benefit and any external benefit.
Social cost, p. 149. The total cost of producing a
good or service, including both the private cost
and any external cost.
Tragedy of the commons, p. 171. The tendency
for a common resource to be overused.
Transactions costs, p. 156. The costs in time
and other resources that parties incur in the
process of agreeing to and carrying out an
exchange of goods or services.

Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Inc.

104 CHAPTER 5 | Externalities, Environmental Policy, and Public Goods

Chapter Outline
Can Economic Policy Help Protect the Environment?
Most scientists believe burning fossil fuels generates greenhouse gases that can increase global warming.
Public opinion polls show that a majority of people believe the government should regulate greenhouse
gases. Most economists agree, but disagree with the public about which government policies would be best.
Many economists endorse market-based policies that rely on incentives rather than administrative rules. A
carbon tax is an example of a market-based policy. Some businesses oppose the carbon tax because they
believe it would raise their costs of production. Other businesses believe a carbon tax would be less costly
and more effective than other government policies.

Externalities and Economic Efficiency (pages 148–151)

5.1 Learning Objective: Identify examples of positive and negative externalities and use
graphs to show how externalities affect economic efficiency.
An externality is a benefit or cost that affects someone who is not directly involved in the production or
consumption of a good or service. In the case of air pollution, there is a negative externality because people
with asthma, for example, may bear a cost even though they were not involved in the buying or selling of
the electricity that caused the pollution. Medical research is an example of a positive externality because
people who are not directly involved in producing it or paying for it can benefit.

A. The Effect of Externalities

A competitive market achieves economic efficiency by maximizing the sum of consumer and producer
surpluses. But that result holds only if there are no externalities in production or consumption. An
externality causes a difference between the private cost of production and the social cost, or the private
benefit from consumption and the social benefit. The private cost is the cost borne by the producer of a
good or service. The social cost is the total cost of producing a good or service, including both the private
cost and any external cost. The private benefit is the benefit received by the consumer of a good or service.
The social benefit is the total benefit from consuming a good or service, including both the private benefit
and any external benefit. When there is a negative externality in the production of a good or service, too
much of the good or service will be produced at market equilibrium. When there is a positive externality in
consuming a good or service, too little of the good or service will be produced at market equilibrium.

B. Externalities and Market Failure

Market failure is a situation in which the market fails to produce the efficient level of output.

C. What Causes Externalities?

Governments need to guarantee property rights for a market system to function well. Property rights are
the rights individuals or businesses have to the exclusive use of their property, including the right to buy or
sell it. In certain situations, property rights do not exist or cannot be legally enforced. Externalities and
market failures result from incomplete property rights or from the difficulty of enforcing property rights in
certain situations.

Teaching Tips
Industrial pollution is often cited as an example of a negative externality, but you can also use smoking as
a classroom example. Most college students grew up in an era where smoking was much less socially
acceptable than when their parents and grandparents were young. Students are often stunned to learn that
smoking—by both students and instructors—was allowed in many college classrooms as late as the 1970s.

Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Inc.

 CHAPTER 5 | Externalities, Environmental Policy, and Public Goods 105

Although few, if any, colleges allow smoking in classroom buildings now, many bars and restaurants have
smoking sections. Ask your students (a) if they would be willing to pay smokers to not smoke while they
are in the same restaurant, or (b) if they have ever chosen to sit in a restaurant’s smoking section to avoid a
longer wait for a table in a non-smoking section.

Extra Solved Problem 5.1

Smoking at Ike’s Bar-B-Q Pit
By 2015, only 16 U.S. states permitted patrons to smoke in both their bars and restaurants. Ike’s Bar-B-Q
Pit is located in one of these states. Some of Ike’s non-smoking customers, including some who suffer from
asthma, have asked Ike to adopt a no-smoking rule for his restaurant. Upon hearing of this request, some of
Ike’s other customers complained that they have smoked in Ike’s restaurant for years and would not
patronize the restaurant if the no-smoking rule were adopted. Ike is greatly concerned because he does not
wish to lose business from either his smoking or non-smoking customers.

Draw a graph illustrating the externality associated with smoking in Ike’s Bar-B-Q Pit and explain how this
externality causes a deviation from economic efficiency in this market.
Solving the Problem
Step 1: Review the chapter material.
This problem is about externalities, so you may want to review the section “Externalities and
Economic Efficiency,” which begins on page 148 of the textbook.

Step 2: Draw a graph to illustrate the externality at Ike’s Bar-B-Q Pit.

This is a negative externality because there are external costs imposed on Ike’s non-smoking
customers as a result of breathing second-hand smoke. These are costs that neither Ike nor his
smoking customers have to pay.

Step 3: Describe how the externality causes a deviation from economic efficiency.
The economically efficient outcome is for the quantity of meals served at Ike’s restaurant to be
Q2 and the price of the meals to be P2. (Ike’s, no doubt, has a varied menu with different meals
with different prices. To simplify this problem, assume P2 is an average meal price.) This

Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Inc.

106 CHAPTER 5 | Externalities, Environmental Policy, and Public Goods

outcome would be economically efficient because it is where the market supply curve that
represents social costs, including the negative health effects on non-smokers, crosses the
demand curve. At this point, the marginal benefit from Ike’s meals would equal the marginal
social cost. However, because neither Ike nor his smoking patrons have to pay for the negative
externality, the market supply curve represents only private costs. As a result, the equilibrium
market price and quantity are P1 and Q1. At this point, the marginal social cost from Ike’s meals
exceeds the marginal benefit.

Extra Making
the The Fable of the Bees
Connection

Apple trees must be pollinated by bees to bear fruit. Bees need the nectar from apple trees (or other plants)
to produce honey. James Meade, winner of the 1977 Nobel Prize in Economics, argued that there were
positive externalities in both apple growing and beekeeping. The more apple trees growers planted, the
more honey would be produced. And the more hives beekeepers kept, the larger the apple crops in
neighboring apple orchards. Steven Cheung of the University of Washington showed that government
intervention was not needed to increase economic efficiency in the markets for apples and honey because
beekeepers and apple growers had long since arrived at private agreements. In other words, a “Coase
solution” to the problem of positive externalities had been reached.

Today, honeybees pollinate more than $14 billion worth of crops annually nationwide. About 1.6 million
beehives are required to pollinate the California almond crop. Beehives are shipped into the state in
February and March to pollinate the almond trees, and then they are shipped to Oregon and Washington to
pollinate cherry, pear, and apple orchards during April and May. But North American beekeepers have
suffered the loss of over 10 million beehives since 2007 from what scientists refer to “colony collapse
disorder.” Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health recently have found evidence that colony
collapse disorder may be due to exposure to a class of widely used insecticides. Harvard researcher
Chensheng Lu believes that future research “…could help elucidate the biological mechanism responsible
[for the disorder]… Hopefully we can reverse the continuing trend of honey bee loss.” While some scientists
have called for restricting or banning the use of the insecticides responsible for the problem other scientists
are attempting to develop almond trees that require fewer bees to pollinate and a private company is
attempting to commercialize a “blue orchard bee” that is stingless and works at colder temperatures than
the honeybee.
Sources: James E. Meade, “External Economies and Diseconomies in a Competitive Situation,” Economic Journal, Vol. 62, March
1952, pp. 54–67; Steven N. S. Cheung, “The Fable of the Bees: An Economic Investigation,” Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 16,
No. 1, April 1973, pp. 11–33; Eric Mack, “The Cause of Colony Collapse Disorder, Disappearing Bees Becoming More Clear,” Forbes,
May 12, 2014. Wendy Lyons Sunshine, “Is Life Too Hard for Honeybees?” Scientific American, March 31, 2009; and Jeff Nesbit,
“Bee Colony Collapses Are More Complex Than We Thought,” US News & World Report, August 7, 2013.

Question
We know that owners of apple orchards and beehives are able to negotiate private agreements. Is it likely
that as a result of these private agreements, the market supplies the efficient quantities of apple trees and
beehives? Are there any real-world difficulties that might stand in the way of achieving this efficient
outcome?

Answer
It seems likely that private agreements will result in something close to the efficient quantities of apple
trees and beehives. We know that private agreements are detailed and enforceable, so it is likely that the

Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Inc.

Another document from Scribd.com that is
random and unrelated content:
 Since I finished my portrait of Os-ce-o-la, and since writing the first
part of this Letter, he has been extremely sick, and lies so yet, with an
alarming attack of the quinsey or putrid sore throat, which will probably
end his career in a few days. Two or three times the surgeon has sent for
the officers of the Garrison and myself, to come and see him “dying”—
we were with him the night before last till the middle of the night, every
moment expecting his death; but he has improved during the last twenty-
four hours, and there is some slight prospect of his recovery.[40] The
steamer starts to-morrow morning for New York, and I must use the
opportunity; so I shall from necessity, leave the subject of Os-ce-o-la and
the Seminolees for future consideration. Adieu.
171

303 304
 172

305

[37] The above Letter was written in the winter of 1838, and by the Secretary at War’s
Report, a year and a half ago, it is seen that 36,000,000 of dollars had been already
expended in the Seminolee war, as well as the lives of 12 or 1400 officers and men,
and defenceless inhabitants, who have fallen victims to the violence of the enraged
savages and diseases of the climate. And at the present date, August, 1841, I see by
the American papers, that the war is being prosecuted at this time with its wonted
vigour; and that the best troops in our country, and the lives of our most valued
officers are yet jeopardised in the deadly swamps of Florida, with little more certainty
of a speedy termination of the war, than there appeared five years ago.
The world will pardon me for saying no more of this inglorious war, for it will be
seen that I am too near the end of my book, to afford it the requisite space; and as an
American citizen, I would pray, amongst thousands of others, that all books yet to be
made, might have as good an excuse for leaving it out.
[38] This veteran old warrior died a few weeks after I painted his portrait, whilst on
his way, with the rest of the prisoners, to the Arkansas.
[39] This remarkably fine boy, by the name of Os-ce-o-la Nick-a-no-chee, has recently
been brought from America to London, by Dr. Welch, an Englishman, who has been
for several years residing in Florida. The boy it seems, was captured by the United
States troops, at the age of six years: but how my friend the Doctor got possession of
him, and leave to bring him away I never have heard. He is acting a very praiseworthy
part however, by the paternal fondness he evinces for the child, and fairly proves, by
the very great pains he is taking with his education. The doctor has published recently,
a very neat volume, containing the boy’s history; and also a much fuller account of
Os-ce-o-la, and incidents of the Florida war, to which I would refer the reader.
[40] From accounts which left Fort Moultrie a few days after I returned home, it
seems, that this ill-fated warrior died, a prisoner, the next morning after I left him.
And the following very interesting account of his last moments, was furnished me by
Dr. Weedon, the surgeon who was by him, with the officers of the garrison, at Os-ce-
o-la’s request.
“About half an hour before he died, he seemed to be sensible that he was dying; and
although he could not speak, he signified by signs that he wished me to send for the
chiefs and for the officers of the post, whom I called in. He made signs to his wives
(of whom he had two, and also two fine little children by his side,) to go and bring his
full dress, which he wore in time of war; which having been brought in, he rose up in
his bed, which was on the floor, and put on his shirt, his leggings and moccasins—
girded on his war-belt—his bullet-pouch and powder-horn, and laid his knife by the
side of him on the floor. He then called for his red paint, and his looking-glass, which
was held before him, when he deliberately painted one half of his face, his neck and
his throat—his wrists—the backs of his hands, and the handle of his knife, red with
vermilion; a custom practiced when the irrevocable oath of war and destruction is
taken. His knife he then placed in its sheath, under his belt; and he carefully arranged
his turban on his head, and his three ostrich plumes that he was in the habit of wearing
in it. Being thus prepared in full dress, he laid down a few minutes to recover strength
sufficient, when he rose up as before, and with most benignant and pleasing smiles,
extended his hand to me and to all of the officers and chiefs that were around him; and
shook hands with us all in dead silence; and also with his wives and his little children;
he made a signal for them to lower him down upon his bed, which was done, and he
then slowly drew from his war-belt, his scalping-knife, which he firmly grasped in his
right hand, laying it across the other, on his breast, and in a moment smiled away his
last breath, without a struggle or a groan.”
 LETTER—No. 58.
NORTH WESTERN FRONTIER.

H finished my travels in the “Far West” for awhile, and being

detained a little time, sans occupation, in my nineteenth or twentieth
transit of what, in common parlance is denominated the Frontier; I have
seated myself down to give some further account of it, and of the doings
and habits of people, both red and white, who live upon it.
The Frontier may properly be denominated the fleeting and unsettled
line extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the Lake of the Woods, a
distance of three thousand miles; which indefinitely separates civilized
from Indian population—a moving barrier, where the unrestrained and
natural propensities of two people are concentrated, in an atmosphere of
lawless iniquity, that offends Heaven, and holds in mutual ignorance of
each other, the honourable and virtuous portions of two people, which
seem destined never to meet.
From what has been said in the foregoing epistles, the reader will
agree that I have pretty closely adhered to my promise made in the
commencement of them; that I should confine my remarks chiefly to
people I have visited, and customs that I have seen, rather than by taking
up his time with matter that might be gleaned from books. He will also
agree, that I have principally devoted my pages, as I promised, to an
account of the condition and customs of those Indians whom I have
found entirely beyond the Frontier, acting and living as Nature taught
them to live and act, without the examples, and consequently without the
taints of civilized encroachments.
He will, I flatter myself, also yield me some credit for devoting the
time and space I have occupied in my first appeal to the world, entirely
to the condition and actions of the living, rather than fatiguing him with
theories of the living or the dead. I have theories enough of my own, and
have as closely examined the condition and customs of these people on
the Frontier, as of those living beyond it—and also their past and present,
and prospective history; but the reader will have learned, that my chief
object in these Letters, has been not only to describe what I have seen,
but of those things, such as I deemed the most novel and least
understood; which has of course confined my remarks heretofore, mostly
to the character and condition of those tribes living entirely in a state of
nature.
And as I have now a little leisure, and no particular tribes before me to
speak of, the reader will allow me to glance my eye over the whole
Indian country for awhile, both along the Frontier and beyond it; taking a
hasty and brief survey of them, and their prospects in the aggregate; and
by not seeing quite as distinctly as I have been in the habit of doing
heretofore, taking pains to tell a little more emphatically what I think,
and what I have thought of those things that I have seen, and yet have
told but in part.
I have seen a vast many of these wild people in my travels, it will be
admitted by all. And I have had toils and difficulties, and dangers to
encounter in paying them my visits; yet I have had my pleasures as I
went along, in shaking their friendly hands, that never had felt the
contaminating touch of money, or the withering embrace of pockets; I
have shared the comforts of their hospitable wigwams, and always have
been preserved unharmed in their country. And if I have spoken, or am to
speak of them, with a seeming bias, the reader will know what allowance
to make for me, who am standing as the champion of a people, who have
treated me kindly, of whom I feel bound to speak well; and who have no
means of speaking for themselves.
Of the dead, to speak kindly, and to their character to render justice, is
always a praiseworthy act; but it is yet far more charitable to extend the
hand of liberality, or to hold the scale of justice, to the living who are
able to feel the benefit of it. Justice to the dead is generally a charity,
inasmuch as it is a kindness to living friends; but to the poor Indian dead,
if it is meted out at all, which is seldom the case, it is thrown to the grave
with him, where he has generally gone without friends left behind him to
inherit the little fame that is reluctantly allowed him while living, and
much less likely to be awarded to him when dead. Of the thousands and
millions, therefore, of these poor fellows who are dead, and whom we
have thrown into their graves, there is nothing that I could now say, that
would do them any good, or that would not answer the world as well at a
future time as at the present; while there is a debt that we are owing to
those of them who are yet living, which I think justly demands our
attention, and all our sympathies at this moment.
 The peculiar condition in which we are obliged to contemplate these
most unfortunate people at this time—hastening to destruction and
extinction, as they evidently are, lays an uncompromising claim upon the
sympathies of the civilized world, and gives a deep interest and value to
such records as are truly made—setting up, and perpetuating from the
life, their true native character and customs.
If the great family of North American Indians were all dying by a
scourge or epidemic of the country, it would be natural, and a virtue, to
weep for them; but merely to sympathize with them (and but partially to
do that) when they are dying at our hands, and rendering their glebe to
our possession, would be to subvert the simplest law of Nature, and turn
civilized man, with all his boasted virtues, back to worse than savage
barbarism.
Justice to a nation who are dying, need never be expected from the
hands of their destroyers; and where injustice and injury are visited upon
the weak and defenceless, from ten thousand hands—from Governments
—monopolies and individuals—the offence is lost in the inseverable
iniquity in which all join, and for which nobody is answerable, unless it
be for their respective amounts, at a final day of retribution.
Long and cruel experience has well proved that it is impossible for
enlightened Governments or money-making individuals to deal with
these credulous and unsophisticated people, without the sin of injustice;
but the humble biographer or historian, who goes amongst them from a
different motive, may come out of their country with his hands and his
conscience clean, and himself an anomaly, a white man dealing with
Indians, and meting out justice to them; which I hope it may be my good
province to do with my pen and my brush, with which, at least, I will
have the singular and valuable satisfaction of having done them no harm.
With this view, and a desire to render justice to my readers also, I have
much yet to say of the general appearance and character of the Indians—
of their condition and treatment; and far more, I fear, than I can allot to
the little space I have designed for the completion of these epistles.
Of the general appearance of the North American Indians, much
might be yet said, that would be new and instructive. In stature, as I have
already said, there are some of the tribes that are considerably above the
ordinary height of man, and others that are evidently below it; allowing
their average to be about equal to that of their fellow-men in the civilized
world. In girth they are less, and lighter in their limbs, and almost
entirely free from corpulency or useless flesh. Their bones are lighter,
their skulls are thinner, and their muscles less hard than those of their
civilized neighbours, excepting in the legs and feet, where they are
brought into more continual action by their violent exercise on foot and
on horseback, which swells the muscles and gives them great strength in
those limbs, which is often quite as conspicuous as the extraordinary
development of muscles in the shoulders and arms of our labouring men.
Although the Indians are generally narrow in the shoulders, and less
powerful with the arms, yet it does not always happen by any means, that
they are so effeminate as they look, and so widely inferior in brachial
strength, as the spectator is apt to believe, from the smooth and rounded
appearance of their limbs. The contrast between one of our labouring
men when he denudes his limbs, and the figure of a naked Indian is to be
sure very striking, and entirely too much so, for the actual difference in
the power of the two persons. There are several reasons for this which
account for so disproportionate a contrast, and should be named.
The labouring man, who is using his limbs the greater part of his life
in lifting heavy weights, &c. sweats them with the weight of clothes
which he has on him, which softens the integuments and the flesh,
leaving the muscles to stand out in more conspicuous relief when they
are exposed; whilst the Indian, who exercises his limbs for the most of
his life, denuded and exposed to the air, gets over his muscles a thicker
and more compact layer of integuments which hide them from the view,
leaving the casual spectator, who sees them only at rest, to suppose them
too decidedly inferior to those which are found amongst people of his
own colour. Of muscular strength in the legs, I have met many of the
most extraordinary instances in the Indian country, that ever I have seen
in my life; and I have watched and studied such for hours together, with
utter surprise and admiration, in the violent exertions of their dances,
where they leap and jump with every nerve strung, and every muscle
swelled, till their legs will often look like a bundle of ropes, rather than a
mass of human flesh. And from all that I have seen, I am inclined to say,
that whatever differences there may be between the North American
Indians and their civilized neighbours in the above respects, they are
decidedly the results of different habits of life and modes of education
rather than of any difference in constitution. And I would also venture
the assertion, that he who would see the Indian in a condition to judge of
his muscles, must see him in motion; and he who would get a perfect
study for an Hercules or an Atlas, should take a stone-mason for the
upper part of his figure, and a Camanchee or a Blackfoot Indian from the
waist downwards to the feet.
There is a general and striking character in the facial outline of the
North American Indians, which is bold and free, and would seem at once
to stamp them as distinct from natives of other parts of the world. Their
noses are generally prominent and aquiline—and the whole face, if
divested of paint and of copper-colour, would seem to approach to the
bold and European character. Many travellers have thought that their
eyes were smaller than those of Europeans; and there is good cause for
one to believe so, if he judges from first impressions, without taking
pains to inquire into the truth and causes of things. I have been struck, as
most travellers, no doubt have, with the want of expansion and apparent
smallness of the Indians’ eyes, which I have found upon examination, to
be principally the effect of continual exposure to the rays of the sun and
the wind, without the shields that are used by the civilized world; and
also when in-doors, and free from those causes, subjected generally to
one more distressing, and calculated to produce similar results, the
smoke that almost continually hangs about their wigwams, which
necessarily contracts the lids of the eyes, forbidding that full flame and
expansion of the eye, that the cool and clear shades of our civilized
domicils are calculated to promote.
The teeth of the Indians are generally regular and sound, and
wonderfully preserved to old age, owing, no doubt, to the fact that they
live without the spices of life—without saccharine and without salt,
which are equally destructive to teeth, in civilized communities. Their
teeth, though sound, are not white, having a yellowish cast; but for the
same reason that a negro’s teeth are “like ivory,” they look white—set as
they are in bronze, as any one with a tolerable set of teeth can easily test,
by painting his face the colour of an Indian, and grinning for a moment
in his looking-glass.
Beards they generally have not—esteeming them great vulgarities, and
using every possible means to eradicate them whenever they are so
unfortunate as to be annoyed with them. Different writers have been very
much at variance on this subject ever since the first accounts given of
these people; and there seems still an unsatisfied curiosity on the subject,
which I would be glad to say that I could put entirely at rest.
From the best information that I could obtain amongst forty-eight
tribes that I have visited, I feel authorized to say, that, amongst the wild
tribes, where they have made no efforts to imitate white men, at least, the
proportion of eighteen out of twenty, by nature are entirely without the
appearance of a beard; and of the very few who have them by nature,
nineteen out of twenty eradicate it by plucking it out several times in
succession, precisely at the age of puberty, when its growth is
successfully arrested; and occasionally one may be seen, who has
omitted to destroy it at that time, and subjects his chin to the repeated
pains of its extractions, which he is performing with a pair of clamshells
or other tweezers, nearly every day of his life—and occasionally again,
but still more rarely, one is found, who from carelessness or inclination
has omitted both of these, and is allowing it to grow to the length of an
inch or two on his chin, in which case it is generally very soft, and
exceedingly sparse. Wherever there is a cross of the blood with the
European or African, which is frequently the case along the Frontier, a
proportionate beard is the result; and it is allowed to grow, or is plucked
out with much toil, and with great pain.
There has been much speculation, and great variety of opinions, as to
the results of the intercourse between the European and African
population with the Indians on the borders; and I would not undertake to
decide so difficult a question, though I cannot help but express my
opinion, which is made up from the vast many instances that I have seen,
that generally speaking, these half-breed specimens are in both instances
a decided deterioration from the two stocks, from which they have
sprung; which I grant may be the consequence that generally flows from
illicit intercourse, and from the inferior rank in which they are held by
both, (which is mostly confined to the lowest and most degraded portions
of society), rather than from any constitutional objection, necessarily
growing out of the amalgamation.
The finest built and most powerful men that I have ever yet seen, have
been some of the last-mentioned, the negro and the North American
Indian mixed, of equal blood. These instances are rare to be sure, yet are
occasionally to be found amongst the Seminolees and Cherokees, and
also amongst the Camanchees, even, and the Caddoes; and I account for
it in this way: From the slave-holding States to the heart of the country of
a wild tribe of Indians, through almost boundless and impassable wilds
and swamps, for hundreds of miles, it requires a negro of extraordinary
leg and courage and perseverance, to travel; absconding from his
master’s fields, to throw himself into a tribe of wild and hostile Indians,
for the enjoyment of his liberty; of which there are occasional instances,
and when they succeed, they are admired by the savage; and as they
come with a good share of the tricks and arts of civilization, they are at
once looked upon by the tribe, as extraordinary and important
personages; and generally marry the daughters of chiefs, thus uniting
theirs with the best blood in the nation, which produce these remarkably
fine and powerful men that I have spoken of above.
Although the Indians of North America, where dissipation and disease
have not got amongst them, undoubtedly are a longer lived and healthier
race, and capable of enduring far more bodily privation and pain, than
civilized people can; yet I do not believe that the differences are
constitutional, or anything more than the results of different
circumstances, and a different education. As an evidence in support of
this assertion, I will allude to the hundreds of men whom I have seen,
and travelled with, who have been for several years together in the
Rocky Mountains, in the employment of the Fur Companies; where they
have lived exactly upon the Indian system, continually exposed to the
open air, and the weather, and, to all the disappointments and privations
peculiar to that mode of life; and I am bound to say, that I never saw a
more hardy and healthy race of men in my life, whilst they remain in the
country; nor any who fall to pieces quicker when they get back to
confined and dissipated life, which they easily fall into, when they return
to their own country.
The Indian women who are obliged to lead lives of severe toil and
drudgery, become exceedingly healthy and robust, giving easy birth and
strong constitutions to their children; which, in a measure, may account
for the simplicity and fewness of their diseases, which in infancy and
childhood are very seldom known to destroy life.
If there were anything like an equal proportion of deaths amongst the
Indian children, that is found in the civilized portions of the world, the
Indian country would long since have been depopulated, on account of
the decided disproportion of children they produce. It is a very rare
occurrence for an Indian woman to be “blessed” with more than four or
five children during her life; and generally speaking, they seem
contented with two or three; when in civilized communities it is no
uncommon thing for a woman to be the mother of ten or twelve, and
sometimes to bear two or even three at a time; of which I never recollect
to have met an instance during all my extensive travels in the Indian
country, though it is possible that I might occasionally have passed them.
 For so striking a dissimilarity as there evidently is between these
people, and those living according to the more artificial modes of life, in
a subject, seemingly alike natural to both, the reader will perhaps expect
me to furnish some rational and decisive causes. Several very plausible
reasons have been advanced for such a deficiency on the part of the
Indians, by authors who have written on the subject, but whose opinions
I should be very slow to adopt; inasmuch as they have been based upon
the Indian’s inferiority, (as the same authors have taken great pains to
prove in most other respects,) to their pale-faced neighbours.
I know of but one decided cause for this difference, which I would
venture to advance, and which I confidently believe to be the principal
obstacle to a more rapid increase of their families; which is the very
great length of time that the women submit to lactation, generally
carrying their children at the breast to the age of two, and sometimes
three, and even four years!
The astonishing ease and success with which the Indian women pass
through the most painful and most trying of all human difficulties, which
fall exclusively to the lot of the gentler sex; is quite equal, I have found
from continued enquiry, to the representations that have often been made
to the world by other travellers, who have gone before me. Many people
have thought this a wise provision of Nature, in framing the constitutions
of these people, to suit the exigencies of their exposed lives, where they
are beyond the pale of skilful surgeons, and the nice little comforts that
visit the sick beds in the enlightened world; but I never have been willing
to give to Nature quite so much credit, for stepping aside of her own rule,
which I believe to be about half way between—from which I am inclined
to think that the refinements of art, and its spices, have led the civilized
world into the pains and perils of one unnatural extreme; whilst the
extraordinary fatigue and exposure, and habits of Indian life, have
greatly released them from natural pains, on the other. With this view of
the case, I fully believe that Nature has dealt everywhere impartially; and
that, if from their childhood, our mothers had, like the Indian women,
carried loads like beasts of burthen—and those over the longest journeys,
and highest mountains—had swam the broadest rivers—and galloped
about for months and even years of their lives, astride of their horse’s
backs; we should have taxed them as lightly in stepping into the world,
as an Indian pappoose does its mother, who ties her horse under the
shade of a tree for half an hour, and before night, overtakes her travelling
companions with her infant in her arms, which has often been the case.
 As to the probable origin of the North American Indians, which is one
of the first questions that suggests itself to the enquiring mind, and will
be perhaps, the last to be settled; I shall have little to say in this place, for
the reason that so abstruse a subject, and one so barren of positive proof,
would require in its discussion too much circumstantial evidence for my
allowed limits; which I am sure the world will agree will be filled up
much more consistently with the avowed spirit of this work, by treating
of that which admits of an abundance of proof—their actual existence,
their customs—and misfortunes; and the suggestions of modes for the
amelioration of their condition.
For a professed philanthropist, I should deem it cruel and hypocritical
to waste time and space in the discussion of a subject, ever so interesting,
(though unimportant), when the present condition and prospects of these
people are calling so loudly upon the world for justice, and for mercy;
and when their evanescent existence and customs are turning, as it were,
on a wheel before us, but soon to be lost; whilst the mystery of their
origin can as well be fathomed at a future day as now, and recorded with
their exit.
Very many people look upon the savages of this vast country, as an
“Anomaly in Nature;” and their existence and origin, and locality, things
that needs must be at once accounted for.
Now, if the world will allow me, (and perhaps they may think me
singular for saying it), I would say, that these things are, in my opinion,
natural and simple; and, like all other works of Nature, destined to
remain a mystery to mortal man; and if man be anywhere entitled to the
name of an anomaly, it is he who has departed the farthest from the
simple walks and actions of his nature.
It seems natural to enquire at once who these people are, and from
whence they came; but this question is natural, only because we are out
of nature. To an Indian, such a question would seem absurd—he would
stand aghast and astounded at the anomaly before him—himself upon his
own ground, “where the Great Spirit made him”—hunting in his own
forests; if an exotic, with a “pale face,” and from across the ocean,
should stand before him, to ask him where he came from, and how he got
there!
I would invite this querist, this votary of science, to sit upon a log with
his red acquaintance, and answer the following questions:—
 “You white man, where you come from?”
“From England, across the water.”
“How white man come to see England? how you face come to get
white, ha?”
I never yet have been made to see the necessity of showing how these
people came here, or that they came here at all; which might easily have
been done, by the way of Behring’s Straits from the North of Asia. I
should much rather dispense with such a necessity, than undertake the
other necessities that must follow the establishment of this; those of
showing how the savages paddled or drifted in their canoes from this
Continent, after they had got here, or from the Asiatic Coast, and landed
on all the South Sea Islands, which we find to be inhabited nearly to the
South Pole. For myself I am quite satisfied with the fact, which is a thing
certain, and to be relied on, that this Continent was found peopled in
every part, by savages; and so, nearly every Island in the South Seas, at
the distance of several thousand miles from either Continent; and I am
quite willing to surrender the mystery to abler pens than my own—to
theorists who may have the time, and the means to prove to the world,
how those rude people wandered there in their bark canoes, without
water for their subsistence, or compasses to guide them on their way.
The North American Indians, and all the inhabitants of the South Sea
Islands, speaking some two or three hundred different languages, entirely
dissimilar, may have all sprung from one stock; and the Almighty, after
creating man. for some reason that is unfathomable to human wisdom,
might have left the whole vast universe, with its severed continents, and
its thousand distant isles everywhere teeming with necessaries and
luxuries, spread out for man’s use; and there to vegetate and rot, for
hundreds and even thousands of centuries, until ultimate, abstract
accident should throw him amongst these infinite mysteries of creation;
the least and most insignificant of which have been created and placed
by design. Human reason is weak, and human ignorance is palpable,
when man attempts to approach these unsearchable mysteries; and I
consider human discretion well applied, when it beckons him back to
things that he can comprehend; where his reason, and all his mental
energies can be employed for the advancement and benefit of his species.
With this conviction, I feel disposed to retreat to the ground that I have
before occupied—to the Indians, as they are, and where they are;
recording amongst them living evidences whilst they live, for the use of
abler theorists than myself—who may labour to establish their origin,
which may be as well (and perhaps better) done, a century hence, than at
the present day.
The reader is apprised, that I have nearly filled the limits allotted to
these epistles; and I assure him that a vast deal which I have seen must
remain untold—whilst from the same necessity, I must tell him much
less than I think, and beg to be pardoned if I withhold, till some future
occasion, many of my reasons for, thinking.
I believe, with many others, that the North American Indians are a
mixed people—that they have Jewish blood in their veins, though I
would not assert, as some have undertaken to prove, “that they are
Jews,” or that they are “the ten lost tribes of Israel.” From the character
and conformation of their heads, I am compelled to look upon them as an
amalgam race, but still savages; and from many of their customs, which
seem to me, to be peculiarly Jewish, as well as from the character of their
heads, I am forced to believe that some part of those ancient tribes, who
have been dispersed by Christians in so many ways, and in so many
different eras, have found their way To this country, where they have
entered amongst the native stock, and have lived and intermarried with
the Indians, until their identity has been swallowed up and lost in the
greater numbers of their new acquaintance, save the bold and decided
character which they have bequeathed to the Indian races; and such of
their customs as the Indians were pleased to adopt, and which they have
preserved to the present day.
I am induced to believe thus from the very many customs which I
have witnessed amongst them, that appear to be decidedly Jewish; and
many of them so peculiarly so, that it would seem almost impossible, or
at all events, exceedingly improbable, that two people in a state of nature
should have hit upon them, and practiced them exactly alike.
The world need not expect me to decide so interesting and difficult a
question; but I am sure they will be disposed to hear simply my opinion,
which I give in this place, quite briefly, and with the utmost respectful
deference to those who think differently. I claim no merit whatever, for
advancing such an opinion, which is not new, having been in several
works advanced to the world by far abler pens than my own, with
volumes of evidence, to the catalogue of which, I feel quite sure I shall
be able to add some new proofs in the proper place. If I could establish
the fact by positive proof, I should claim a great deal of applause from
the world, and should, no doubt, obtain it; but, like everything relating to
the origin and early history of these unchronicled people, I believe this
question is one that will never be settled, but will remain open for the
opinions of the world, which will be variously given, and that upon
circumstantial evidence alone.
I am compelled to believe that the Continent of America, and each of
the other Continents, have had their aboriginal stocks, peculiar in colour
and in character—and that each of these native stocks has undergone
repeated mutations (at periods, of which history has kept no records), by
erratic colonies from abroad, that have been engrafted upon them—
mingling with them, and materially affecting their original character. By
this process, I believe that the North American Indians, even where we
find them in their wildest condition, are several degrees removed from
their original character; and that one of their principal alloys has been a
part of those dispersed people, who have mingled their blood and their
customs with them, and even in their new disguise, seem destined to be
followed up with oppression and endless persecution.
The first and most striking fact amongst the North American Indians
that refers us to the Jews, is that of their worshipping in all parts, the
Great Spirit, or Jehovah, as the Hebrews were ordered to do by Divine
precept, instead of a plurality of gods, as ancient pagans and heathens did
—and their idols of their own formation. The North American Indians,
are nowhere idolaters—they appeal at once to the Great Spirit, and know
of no mediator, either personal or symbolical.
The Indian tribes are everywhere divided into bands, with chiefs,
symbols, badges, &c., and many of their modes of worship I have found
exceedingly like those of the Mosaic institution. The Jews had their
sanctum sanctorums, and so may it be said the Indians have, in their
council or medicine-houses, which are always held as sacred places. As
the Jews had, they have their high-priests and their prophets. Amongst
the Indians as amongst the ancient Hebrews, the women are not allowed
to worship with the men—and in all cases also, they eat separately. The
Indians everywhere, like the Jews, believe that they are the favourite
people of the Great Spirit, and they are certainly, like those ancient
people, persecuted, as every man’s hand seems raised against them—and
they, like the Jews, destined to be dispersed over the world, and
seemingly scourged by the Almighty, and despised of man.
 In their marriages, the Indians, as did the ancient Jews, uniformly buy
their wives by giving presents—and in many tribes, very closely
resemble them in other forms and ceremonies of their marriages.
In their preparations for war, and in peace-making, they are strikingly
similar. In their treatment of the sick, burial of the dead and mourning,
they are also similar.
In their bathing and ablutions, at all seasons of the year, as a part of
their religious observances—having separate places for men and women
to perform these immersions—they resemble again. And the custom
amongst the women, of absenting themselves during the lunar
influences, is exactly consonant to the Mosaic law. This custom of
separation is an uniform one amongst the different tribes, as far as I have
seen them in their primitive state, and be it Jewish, natural or
conventional, it is an indispensable form with these wild people, who are
setting to the civilized world, this and many other examples of decency
and propriety, only to be laughed at by their wiser neighbours, who,
rather than award to the red man any merit for them, have taken
exceeding pains to call them but the results of ignorance and superstition.
So, in nearly every family of a tribe, will be found a small lodge, large
enough to contain one person, which is erected at a little distance from
the family lodge, and occupied by the wife or the daughter, to whose
possession circumstances allot it; where she dwells alone until she is
prepared to move back, and in the meantime the touch of her hand or her
finger to the chief’s lodge, or his gun, or other article of his household,
consigns it to destruction at once; and in case of non-conformity to this
indispensable form, a woman’s life may, in some tribes, be answerable
for misfortunes that happen to individuals or the tribe, in the interim.
After this season of separation, purification in running water, and
annointing, precisely in accordance with the Jewish command, is
requisite before she can enter the family lodge. Such is one of the
extraordinary observances amongst these people in their wild state; but
along the Frontier, where white people have laughed at them for their
forms, they have departed from this, as from nearly everything else that
is native and original about them.
In their feasts, fastings and sacrificing, they are exceedingly like those
ancient people. Many of them have a feast closely resembling the annual
feast of the Jewish passover; and amongst others, an occasion much like
the Israelitish feast of the tabernacles, which lasted eight days, (when
history tells us they carried bundles of willow boughs, and fasted several
days and nights) making sacrifices of the first fruits and best of
everything, closely resembling the sin-offering and peace-offering of the
Hebrews.[41]
These, and many others of their customs would seem to be decidedly
Jewish; yet it is for the world to decide how many of them, or whether all
of them, might be natural to all people, and, therefore, as well practiced
by these people in a state of nature, as to have been borrowed from a
foreign nation.
Amongst the list of their customs however, we meet a number which
had their origin it would seem, in the Jewish Ceremonial code, and
which are so very peculiar in their forms, that it would seem quite
improbable, and almost impossible, that two different people should ever
have hit upon them alike, without some knowledge of each other. These I
consider, go farther than anything else as evidence, and carry, in my
mind, conclusive proof that these people are tinctured with Jewish blood;
even though the Jewish sabbath has been lost, and circumcision probably
rejected; and dog’s flesh, which was an abomination to the Jews,
continued to be eaten at their feasts by all the tribes of Indians; not
because the Jews have been prevailed upon to use it, but, because they
have survived only, as their blood was mixed with that of the Indians,
and the Indians have imposed on that mixed blood the same rules and
regulations that governed the members of the tribes in general.
Many writers are of opinion, that the natives of America are all from
one stock, and their languages from one root—that that stock is exotic,
and that that language was introduced with it. And the reason assigned
for this theory is, that amongst the various tribes, there is a reigning
similarity in looks—and in their languages a striking resemblance to
each other.
Now, if all the world were to argue in this way, I should reason just in
the other; and pronounce this, though evidence to a certain degree, to be
very far from conclusive, inasmuch as it is far easier and more natural for
distinct tribes, or languages, grouped and used together, to assimilate
than to dissimilate; as the pebbles on a sea-shore, that are washed about
and jostled together, lose their angles, and incline at last to one rounded
and uniform shape. So that if there had been, ab origine, a variety of
different stocks in America, with different complexions, with different
characters and customs, and of different statures, and speaking entirely
different tongues; where they have been for a series of centuries living
neighbours to each other, moving about and intermarrying; I think we
might reasonably look for quite as great a similarity in their personal
appearance and languages, as we now find; when, on the other hand, if
we are to suppose that they were all from one foreign stock, with but one
language, it is a difficult thing to conceive how or in what space of time,
or for what purpose, they could have formed so many tongues, and so
widely different, as those that are now spoken on the Continent.
It is evident I think, that if an island or continent had been peopled
with black, white and red; a succession of revolving centuries of
intercourse amongst these different colours would have had a tendency
to bring them to one standard complexion, when no computable space of
time, nor any conceivable circumstances could restore them again;
reproducing all, or either of the distinct colours, from the compound.
That customs should be found similar, or many of them exactly the
same, on the most opposite parts of the Continent, is still less surprising;
for these will travel more rapidly, being more easily taught at Treaties
and festivals between hostile bands, or disseminated by individuals
travelling through neighbouring tribes, whilst languages and blood
require more time for their admixture.
That the languages of the North American Indians, should be found to
be so numerous at this day, and so very many of them radically different,
is a subject of great surprise, and unaccountable, whether these people
are derived from one individual stock, or from one hundred, or one
thousand.
Though languages like colour and like customs, are calculated to
assimilate, under the circumstances above named; yet it is evident that,
(if derived from a variety of sources), they have been unaccountably kept
more distinct than the others; and if from one root, have still more
unaccountably dissimulated and divided into at least one hundred and
fifty, two-thirds of which, I venture to say, are entirely and radically
distinct; whilst amongst the people who speak them, there is a reigning
similarity in looks, in features and in customs, which would go very far
to pronounce them one family, by nature or by convention.
I do not believe, with some very learned and distinguished writers,
that the languages of the North American Indians can be traced to one
root or to three or four, or any number of distinct idioms; nor do I believe
all, or any one of them, will ever be fairly traced to a foreign origin.
 If the looks and customs of the Jews, are decidedly found and
identified with these people—and also those of the Japanese, and
Calmuc Tartars, I think we have but little, if any need of looking for the
Hebrew language, or either of the others, for the reasons that I have
already given; for the feeble colonies of these, or any other foreign
people that might have fallen by accident upon the shores of this great
Continent, or who might have approached it by Behring’s Straits, have
been too feeble to give a language to fifteen or twenty millions of people,
or in fact to any portion of them; being in all probability, in great part cut
to pieces and destroyed by a natural foe; leaving enough perhaps, who
had intermarried, to innoculate their blood and their customs; which have
run, like a drop in a bucket, and slightly tinctured the character of tribes
who have sternly resisted their languages, which would naturally, under
such circumstances, have made but very little impression.
Such I consider the condition of the Jews in North America; and
perhaps the Scandanavians, and the followers of Madoc, who by some
means, and some period that I cannot name, have thrown themselves
upon the shores of this country, and amongst the ranks of the savages;
where, from destructive wars with their new neighbours, they have been
overpowered, and perhaps, with the exception of those who had
intermarried, they have been destroyed, yet leaving amongst the savages
decided marks of their character; and many of their peculiar customs,
which had pleased, and been adopted by the savages, while they had
sternly resisted others: and decidedly shut out and discarded their
language, and of course obliterated everything of their history.
That there should often be found contiguous to each other, several
tribes speaking dialects of the same language, is a matter of no surprise
at all; and wherever such is the case, there is resemblance enough also, in
looks and customs, to show that they are parts of the same tribes, which
have comparatively recently severed and wandered apart, as their
traditions will generally show; and such resemblances are often found
and traced, nearly across the Continent, and have been accounted for in
some of my former Letters. Several very learned gentlemen, whose
opinions I would treat with the greatest respect, have supposed that all
the native languages of America were traceable to three or four roots; a
position which I will venture to say will be an exceedingly difficult one
for them to maintain, whilst remaining at home and consulting books, in
the way that too many theories are supported; and one infinitely more
difficult to prove if they travel amongst the different tribes, and collect
their own information as they travel.[42] I am quite certain that I have
found in a number of instances, tribes who have long lived neighbours to
each other, and who, from continued intercourse, had learned mutually,
many words of each others language, and adopted them for common use
or mottoes, as often, or oftener than we introduce the French or Latin
phrases in our conversation; from which the casual visitor to one of these
tribes, might naturally suppose there was a similarity in their languages;
when a closer examiner would find that the idioms and structure of the
several languages were entirely distinct.
I believe that in this way, the world who take but a superficial glance
at them, are, and will be, led into continual error on this interesting
subject; one that invites, and well deserves from those learned
gentlemen, a fair investigation by them, on the spot; rather than so
limited and feeble an examination as I have been able to make of it, or
that they, can make, in their parlours, at so great a distance from them,
and through such channels as they are obliged to look to for their
information.
Amongst the tribes that I have visited, I consider that thirty, out of the
forty-eight, are distinct and radically different in their languages, and
eighteen are dialects of some three or four. It is a very simple thing for
the off-hand theorists of the scientific world, who do not go near these
people, to arrange and classify them; and a very clever thing to simplify
the subject, and bring it, like everything else, under three or four heads,
and to solve, and resolve it, by as many simple rules.
I do not pretend to be able to give to this subject, or to that of the
probable origin of these people, the close investigation that these
interesting subjects require and deserve; yet I have travelled and
observed enough amongst them, and collected enough, to enable me to
form decided opinions of my own; and in my conviction, have acquired
confidence enough to tell them, and at the same time to recommend to
the Government or institutions of my own country, to employ men of
science, such as I have mentioned, and protect them in their visits to
these tribes, where “the truth, and the whole truth” may be got; and the
languages of all the tribes that are yet in existence, (many of which are
just now gasping them out in their last breath,) may be snatched and
preserved from oblivion; as well as their looks and their customs, to the
preservation of which my labours have been principally devoted.
 I undertake to say to such gentlemen, who are enthusiastic and
qualified, that here is one of the most interesting subjects that they could
spend the energies of their valuable lives upon, and one the most sure to
secure for them that immortality for which it is natural and fair for all
men to look.
From what has been said in the foregoing Letters, it will have been
seen that there are three divisions under which the North American
Indians may be justly considered; those who are dead—those who are
dying, and those who are yet living and flourishing in their primitive
condition. Of the dead, I have little to say at present, and I can render
them no service—of the living, there is much to be said, and I shall regret
that the prescribed limits of these epistles, will forbid me saying all that I
desire to say of them and their condition.
The present condition of these once numerous people, contrasted with
what, it was, and what it is soon to be, is a subject of curious interest, as
well as some importance, to the civilized world—a subject well entitled
to the attention, and very justly commanding the sympathies of,
enlightened communities. There are abundant proofs recorded in the
history of this country, and to which I need not at this time more
particularly refer, to shew that this very numerous and respectable part of
the human family, which occupied the different parts of North America,
at the time of its first settlement by the Anglo-Americans, contained
more than fourteen millions, who have been reduced since that time, and
undoubtedly in consequence of that settlement, to something less than
two millions!
This is a startling fact, and one which carries with it, if it be the truth,
other facts and their results, which are equally startling, and such as
every inquiring mind should look into. The first deduction that the mind
draws from such premises, is the rapid declension of these people, which
must at that rate be going on at this day; and sooner or later, lead to the
most melancholy result of their final extinction.
Of this sad termination of their existence, there need not be a doubt in
the minds of any man who will read the history of their former
destruction; contemplating them swept already from two-thirds of the
Continent; and who will then travel as I have done, over the vast extent
of Frontier, and witness the modes by which the poor fellows are falling,
whilst contending for their rights, with acquisitive white men. Such a
reader, and such a traveller, I venture to say, if he has not the heart of a
brute, will shed tears for them; and be ready to admit that their character
and customs, are at this time, a subject of interest and importance, and
rendered peculiarly so from the facts that they are dying at the hands of
their Christian neighbours; and, from all past experience, that there will
probably be no effectual plan instituted, that will save the remainder of
them from a similar fate. As they stand at this day, there may be four or
five hundred thousand in their primitive state; and a million and a half,
that may be said to be semi-civilized, contending with the sophistry of
white men, amongst whom they are timidly and unsuccessfully
endeavouring to hold up their heads, and aping their modes; whilst they
are swallowing their poisons, and yielding their lands and their lives, to
the superior tact and cunning of their merciless cajolers.
In such parts of their community, their customs are uninteresting;
being but poor and ridiculous imitations of those that are bad enough,
those practiced by their first teachers—but in their primitive state, their
modes of life and character, before they are changed, are subjects of
curious interest, and all that I have aimed to preserve. Their personal
appearance, their dress, and many of their modes of life, I have already
described.
For their Government, which is purely such as has been dictated to
them by Nature and necessity alone, they are indebted to no foreign,
native or civilized nation. For their religion, which is simply Theism,
they are indebted to the Great Spirit, and not to the Christian world. For
their modes of war, they owe nothing to enlightened nations—using only
those weapons and those modes which are prompted by nature, and
within the means of their rude manufactures.
If, therefore, we do not find in their systems of polity and
jurisprudence, the efficacy and justice that are dispensed in civilized
institutions—if we do not find in their religion the light and the grace
that flow from Christian faith—if in wars they are less honourable, and
wage them upon a system of “murderous stratagem,” it is the duty of the
enlightened world, who administer justice in a better way—who worship
in a more acceptable form—and who war on a more honourable scale, to
make great allowance for their ignorance, and yield to their credit, the
fact, that if their systems are less wise, they are often more free from
injustice—from hypocrisy and from carnage.
Their Governments, if they have any (for I am almost disposed to
question the propriety of applying the term), are generally alike; each
tribe having at its head, a chief (and most generally a war and civil
chief), whom it would seem, alternately hold the ascendency, as the
circumstances of peace or war may demand their respective services.
These chiefs, whose titles are generally hereditary, hold their offices only
as long as their ages will enable them to perform the duties of them by
taking the lead in war-parties, &c., after which they devolve upon the
next incumbent, who is the eldest son of the chief, provided he is decided
by the other chiefs to be as worthy of it as any other young man in the
tribe—in default of which, a chief is elected from amongst the sub-
chiefs; so that the office is hereditary on condition, and elective in
emergency.
The chief has no controul over the life or limbs, or liberty of his
subjects, nor other power whatever, excepting that of influence which he
gains by his virtues, and his exploits in war, and which induces his
warriors and braves to follow him, as he leads them to battle—or to
listen to him when he speaks and advises in council. In fact, he is no
more than a leader, whom every young warrior may follow, or turn about
and go back from, as he pleases, if he is willing to meet the disgrace that
awaits him, who deserts his chief in the hour of danger.
It may be a difficult question to decide, whether their Government
savours most of a democracy or an aristocracy; it is in some respects
purely democratic—and in others aristocratic. The influence of names
and families is strictly kept up, and their qualities and relative
distinctions preserved in heraldric family Arms; yet entirely severed, and
free from influences of wealth, which is seldom amassed by any persons
in Indian communities; and most sure to slip from the hands of chiefs, or
others high in office, who are looked upon to be liberal and charitable;
and oftentimes, for the sake of popularity, render themselves the poorest,
and most meanly dressed and equipped of any in the tribe.
These people have no written laws, nor others, save the penalties
affixed to certain crimes, by long-standing custom, or by the decisions of
the chiefs in council, who form a sort of Court and Congress too, for the
investigation of crimes, and transaction of the public business. For the
sessions of these dignitaries, each tribe has, in the middle of their village,
a Government or council-house, where the chiefs often try and convict,
for capital offences—leaving the punishment to be inflicted by the
nearest of kin, to whom all eyes of the nation are turned, and who has no
means of evading it without suffering disgrace in his tribe. For this
purpose, the custom, which is the common law of the land, allows him to
use any means whatever, that he may deem necessary to bring the thing
effectually about; and he is allowed to waylay and shoot down the
criminal—so that punishment is certain and cruel, and as effective from
the hands of a feeble, as from those of a stout man, and entirely beyond
the hope that often arises from the “glorious uncertainty of the law.”
As I have in a former place said, cruelty is one of the leading traits of
the Indian’s character; and a little familiarity with their modes of life and
government will soon convince the reader, that certainty and cruelty in
punishments are requisite (where individuals undertake to inflict the
penalties of the laws), in order to secure the lives and property of
individuals in society.
In the treatment of their prisoners also, in many tribes, they are in the
habit of inflicting the most appalling tortures, for which the enlightened
world are apt to condemn them as cruel and unfeeling in the extreme;
without stopping to learn that in every one of these instances, these
cruelties are practiced by way of retaliation, by individuals or families of
the tribe, whose relatives have been previously dealt with in a similar
way by their enemies, and whose manes they deem it their duty to
appease by this horrid and cruel mode of retaliation.
And in justice to the savage, the reader should yet know, that amongst
these tribes that torture their prisoners, these cruelties are practiced but
upon the few whose lives are required to atone for those who have been
similarly dealt with by their enemies, and that the remainder are adopted
into the tribe, by marrying the widows whose husbands have fallen in
battle, in which capacity they are received and respected like others of
the tribe, and enjoy equal rights and immunities. And before we
condemn them too far, we should yet pause and enquire whether in the
enlightened world we are not guilty of equal cruelties—whether in the
ravages and carnage of war, and treatment of prisoners, we practice any
virtue superior to this; and whether the annals of history which are
familiar to all, do not furnish abundant proof of equal cruelty to prisoners
of war, as well as in many instances, to the members of our own
respective communities. It is a remarkable fact and one well recorded in
history, as it deserves to be, to the honour of the savage, that no instance
has been known of violence to their captive females, a virtue yet to be
learned in civilized warfare.
If their punishments are certain and cruel, they have the merit of being
few, and those confined chiefly to their enemies. It is natural to be cruel
to enemies; and in this, I do not see that the improvements of the
enlightened and Christian world have yet elevated them so very much
above the savage. To their friends, there are no people on earth that are
more kind; and cruelties and punishments (except for capital offences)
are amongst themselves, entirely dispensed with. No man in their
communities is subject to any restraints upon his liberty, or to any
corporal or degrading punishment; each one valuing his limbs, and his
liberty to use them as his inviolable right, which no power in the tribe
can deprive him of; whilst each one holds the chief as amenable to him
as the most humble individual in the tribe.
 173

306
 174

307
 175

308
On an occasion when I had interrogated a Sioux chief, on the Upper
Missouri, about their Government—their punishments and tortures of
prisoners, for which I had freely condemned them for the cruelty of the
practice, he took occasion when I had got through, to ask me some
questions relative to modes in the civilized world, which, with his
comments upon them, were nearly as follow; and struck me, as I think
they must every one, with great force.
“Among white people, nobody ever take your wife—take your
children—take your mother, cut off nose—cut eyes out—burn to death?”
No! “Then you no cut off nose—you no cut out eyes—you no burn to
death—very good.”
He also told me he had often heard that white people hung their
criminals by the neck and choked them to death like dogs, and those their
own people; to which I answered, “yes.” He then told me he had learned
that they shut each other up in prisons, where they keep them a great part
of their lives because they can’t pay money! I replied in the affirmative to
this, which occasioned great surprise and excessive laughter, even
amongst the women. He told me that he had been to our Fort, at Council
Bluffs, where we had a great many warriors and braves, and he saw three
of them taken out on the prairies and tied to a post and whipped almost
to death, and he had been told that they submit to all this to get a little
money, “yes.” He said he had been told, that when all the white people
were born, their white medicine-men had to stand by and look on—that
in the Indian country the women would not allow that—they would be
ashamed—that he had been along the Frontier, and a good deal amongst
the white people, and he had seen them whip their little children—a
thing that is very cruel—he had heard also, from several white medicine-
men, that the Great Spirit of the white people was the child of a white
woman, and that he was at last put to death by the white people! This
seemed to be a thing that he had not been able to comprehend, and he
concluded by saying, “the Indians’ Great Spirit got no mother—the
Indians no kill him, he never die.” He put me a chapter of other
questions, as to the trespasses of the white people on their lands—their
continual corruption of the morals of their women—and digging open
the Indians’ graves to get their bones, &c. To all of which I was
compelled to reply in the affirmative, and quite glad to close my note-
book, and quietly to escape from the throng that had collected around
me, and saying (though to myself and silently), that these and an hundred
other vices belong to the civilized world, and are practiced upon (but
certainly, in no instance, reciprocated by) the “cruel and relentless
savage.”
Of their modes of war, of which, a great deal has been written by other
travellers—I could say much, but in the present place, must be brief. All
wars, offensive or defensive, are decided on by the chiefs and doctors in
council, where majority decides all questions. After their resolve, the
chief conducts and leads—his pipe with the reddened stem is sent
through the tribe by his runners, and every man who consents to go to
war, draws the smoke once through its stem; he is then a volunteer, like
all of their soldiers in war, and bound by no compulsive power, except
that of pride, and dread of the disgrace of turning back. After the soldiers
are enlisted, the war-dance is performed in presence of the whole tribe;
when each warrior in warrior’s dress, with weapons in hand, dances up
separately, and striking the reddened post, thereby takes the solemn oath
not to desert his party.
The chief leads in full dress to make himself as conspicuous a mark as
possible for his enemy; whilst his men are chiefly denuded, and their
limbs and faces covered with red earth or vermilion, and oftentimes with
charcoal and grease, so as completely to disguise them, even from the
knowledge of many of their intimate friends.
At the close of hostilities, the two parties are often brought together by
a flag of truce, where they sit in Treaty, and solemnize by smoking
through the calumet or pipe of peace, as I have before described; and
after that, their warriors and braves step forward, with the pipe of peace
in the left hand, and the war-club in the right, and dance around in a
circle—going through many curious and exceedingly picturesque
evolutions in the “pipe of peace dance.”
To each other I have found these people kind and honourable, and
endowed with every feeling of parental, of filial, and conjugal affection,
that is met in more enlightened communities. I have found them moral
and religious: and I am bound to give them great credit for their zeal,
which is often exhibited in their modes of worship, however insufficient
they may seem to us, or may be in the estimation of the Great Spirit.
I have heard it said by some very good men, and some who have even
been preaching the Christian religion amongst them, that they have no
religion—that all their zeal in their worship of the Great Spirit was but
the foolish excess of ignorant superstition—that their humble devotions
and supplications to the Sun and the Moon, where many of them suppose
that the Great Spirit resides, were but the absurd rantings of idolatry. To
such opinions as these I never yet gave answer, nor drew other instant
inferences from them, than, that from the bottom of my heart, I pitied the
persons who gave them.
I fearlessly assert to the world, (and I defy contradiction,) that the
North American Indian is everywhere, in his native state, a highly moral
and religious being, endowed by his Maker, with an intuitive knowledge
of some great Author of his being, and the Universe; in dread of whose
displeasure he constantly lives, with the apprehension before him, of a